In late August, I took a personal field trip to the US Botanic Garden, located on The Mall in downtown DC. It had been a while since I visited. The National Garden has grown in since its early days and was the site of lots of cleanup work the day I was there, so I didn’t photograph it. But the areas around the entrance to the building were awash with beautiful, full late-summer plantings, both in beds and containers, including those planted as an extension of the garden’s “Amber Waves of Grain” exhibit (which remains up through October 13). Hope you enjoy the photos!
Posted tagged ‘containers’
High Summer at the US Botanic Garden
October 3, 2014High Summer at Green Spring Gardens
July 18, 2014It’s high summer. Hot as you know what. Here in the metro DC area, gardens are starting to struggle (including mine). So recently I decided to venture out to Green Spring Gardens, in Alexandria VA, a Fairfax County public garden known for its great plantings (as well as its excellent educational offerings for gardeners). I wanted to see what was blooming, or otherwise looking good, despite the challenging summer climate. Here’s what I found – an impressive mix of annuals, perennials, shrubs and trees. If you live in the area, take a road trip for yourself!
Garden Shoots will be on vacation until after Labor Day. See you in September!
Garden Spots in Havana
February 28, 2014A couple of weeks ago, I returned from a week in Cuba with the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. I went to see Cuba before (as one of our group members put it) “there’s a Starbucks on every corner.” It was an incredible trip, and I’m already planning to return next year if I can.
I didn’t go to photograph gardens, and the photos I took for the most part fell into other themes – architecture, people, cultural events, and the city itself. More of those images later. But to my surprise, there were plants and parks everywhere. Plants on balconies in pots. Lushly planted pocket/plaza parks. Bougainvillea growing up the sides of buildings. And in some cases, ferns sprouting out of cracks in the facades of some of the older, crumbling but still magnificent edifices that serve as businesses or in-town tenement apartments. While I work on my other images (too many!), here are a few photos of green spaces in Havana.
Powell Street Promenade
September 20, 2013In July I headed to the Bay Area for a few days, camera in hand, to visit one of my sons. I had one full day, and several mornings, to devote to photography in and around where I was staying – the Union Square area of San Francisco. Yup, near all those “little cable cars.”

The cable cars’ routes include one up and down Powell Street, turning around at the BART station of the same name. iPhone photo via Hipstamatic.
I was planning primarily to shoot architectural sights while there (and some of those will be featured in a later post). Imagine my surprise when right outside my door was an innovative landscape project by Walter Hood, the Powell Street Promenade.
Underwritten by Audi at a cost of $890,000, the Promenade consists of eight six-foot-wide “parklets,” carved out of traffic lanes and abutting the sidewalk. Given the huge numbers of tourists travelling Powell Street on a regular basis, having an attractive, protected spot to step out of the flow of people and chat with friends, sit down for a bit, or park your bike while you make a call or stop in a store is a great idea.
There are a few built-in benches, which always seemed in high demand.
All of the structures are fabricated from aluminum, which forms “rail ribbons.” They include planters with narrow borders that can double as a seating area in a pinch (I recognized a few plants such as Mexican heather and Yucca, others were not familiar to my East Coast eyes), guardrails to protect against the busy Powell Street traffic, and the “tables” and lower versions that Hood has suggested could be used for sleeping as well as sitting benches. No advertising is allowed in the areas, which boast free Wi-Fi. (How very Silicon Valley!)
For more details on this project, check out this blog post from the San Francisco outpost of Streetsblog. And the next time you’re in the City by the Bay, in the vicinity of Union Square, be sure not to miss this innovative design feature on Powell Street!